Music (the most understated and... wait for it.... underated! aspect of game design)

What options do we have when it comes to creating music for our games? It's a pretty integral part of a game (depending on the game). I intend to make games that have deep stories and worlds and without a good score the mood would just fall flat...

Garage Band is the quickest. Other than that... it's pretty much score your own or hire someone else. Assuming you're unhappy with whatever royalty free, or for-purchase music is out there. Google will yield many of those.

I agree, soundtracks are very underrated in game design, specially in shareware/freeware level, but a good one can really enhanche the gaming experience. I think the best way to go if you're not a musician is to find someone that knows about it and is willing to work in your project just for the pleasure of contributing.

Personally, I really enjoy working on a game's soundtrack because even if economically it won't be very profitable, it gives me a focus on what I want to achieve with the music to have it strengthen the game ambience, thus it helps me develop my musical skills, is a good showcase of my work and keeps me in touch with game developing, which I really like.

Music is understated because it's usually the last fase in the chain, not only when it comes to development but in general. Few people start with the music (music videos comes to mind).

That said, take a look at my signature (below)
Let me just be clear about 1 thing. You can listen to it, you can even download it, but if you intend to use it in some project of yours, you need to contact me.

Garageband is by far one of your best bets, but I have found that the amount of software instruments are extremely low and the add on packs only add loops. You can use Garageband to piece togther instruments made from a midi generaing program for example.

In music design you need to have a very clear idea on what you're going to make, and what purpose that piece of music is going to serve. Many a time have I went into grageband hoping to make a nice piece of village shop music or whatever, and found that as Garageband didn't have what I wanted, I ended up with something completely different because I didn't p[roperly plan the piece of music.

If anyone knows any good midi sequencers that are free, and are not iPiano - then I would very much like to know.

A must have program is YAAC. What that does is convert a huge variety of formats to other formats, and can be very useful when either making music with a specific program, or when getting music supplied to you from a musician.

Music is very underestimated, and something that should also include the coders. This could also get the hardcore coders more interested, or at least understanding of the importance of music. Here's one idea I've been thinking of on how to do interesting music tracks for a game;

Each "world" (or whatever) has its own melody. I'll record this melody in many different "moods". Like

nylon string guitar

piano

orchestra, choir, everything

hammond, some guitars - going for a bit more agressive version

So when it's "natural" ingame to get another mood (say you're crying over your dead comrades to the nylon string guitar, then suddenly you get attacked), the other instruments take over. With the same melody, same speed, same everything only other intruments and other dynamics.

The problem with this would be to get the progressions as reactive as possible so that the "new mood" comes at the same time as something is happening, and for them to sound transparent, seemless and natural.

Would need a great deal of coding aswell, no?
Would be fun trying something like this for uDev or something.

If you want to go all out, you can have events trigger certain riffs/fills in the music. Let's say you've got a fill that is appropriate for the third and fourth beat of a bar. When the user event occurs, set a flag so that that fill will be played the next time the 3rd and 4th beats come around. That way, you'll keep in time.

Examples of "user events":
- you finish a lap in a racing game
- you get some air in a snowboarding game
- you get some kind of a power-up

For a great example of this kind of user-triggered music, check out SSX Tricky.

I've made a post about this already, but this seems appropriate to post here too, just in case.

I'm a full time music composer and producer, currently working on a university project on game and adaptive music. I'm looking for any games for which I can create some adaptive music (and other more fixed peices) for, and the end results of this will be free for anybody to use in their project if its up to scratch.

I dont bother to ask people to do music for me because it's quite possible that they spend time on it and I dont like it and I dont want to tell them "no, sorry, I appreciate your effort but I dont like it and I wont use it".

So I tend not to ask people to do stuff for me.

No music IMO is better than average music, since people can always let itunes go.

But if I find some really kickass music somewhere I can consider using it (like a few days ago I found some of the most amazing techno themes I ever heard in a game, so I asked the author for permission to use it and I got it!)